“Live free or die.”
John Stark
Once again powerful forces across the Granite State are embroiled in an emotional debate testing the mettle of New Hampshire’s movers and shakers. For more than half a century this highly charged polemic has ebbed and flowed from the Connecticut River to the Isle of Shoals and from the “golden triangle” to the Canadian border.
Recently, the current governor and one of his illustrious predecessors joined the fray, both not surprisingly trumpeting a conservative line of maintaining the status quo. Waging an uphill, perhaps unwinnable, battle against these heavyweights are a few state reps led by Thea Braiterman.
The focus of this legislative wrangling is not over such superficial issues as education, broad based taxes, health care reform or the expansion of legalized gambling. Rather, energies and political capital are being expended on the output of the state’s most visible cottage industry, the manufacture of automobile license plates. Actually, it’s not the license plates themselves which are at issue but the inclusion, location and size of the state’s motto on the plates.
During the automobile’s infancy, license plates were unknown. Then, when the government discovered cars were but another item to be regulated, some clever bureaucrat figured the only way to verify which cars were properly registered was to require each to display some sort of decal. Alas, the license plates were born and, no doubt, several public sector jobs in the process.
These primitive plates carried a state-assigned number, the year and the state’s initials. During the 1930’s, state’s image-makers persuaded someone to add a likeness of the Old Man of the Mountain, only to have it vanish several years later. However, like the fabled phoenix, the Profile rose from ashes, reappeared in 1987.
Meantime, in an effort to spur post-war tourism, “Scenic New Hampshire” graced the ends of our automobiles for a number of years. While this message apparently offended no one, it’s unlikely it brought hoards of tourists streaming across the state’s borders either.
Then came the tumultuous 1960’s with its social upheaval and the Vietnam War. Then governor, now elder statesman and historian, Mel Thompson successfully spearheaded a move to replace the bland “Scenic” message with the state’s motto, “Live Free of Die”. Predictably, Thompson’s pro-war sentiments landed the state in court … resulting in a decision permitting individuals to tape over General Stark’s immortal words as a permitted form of First Amendment speech. While few took advantage of this form of protest, most of the state’s citizens simply ignore the “Live Free of Die” motto.
Today, however, the design and text of the state’s license plates has again returned to the political arena. While the Department of Safety has undertaken project to upgrade the state’s presently unimaginative graphics, Commissioner Flynn’s ultimate recommendation will retain both the Old Man and the state motto.
Concurrently, Representative Braiterman wants to trash “Live Free of Die”, replacing it with the “Scenic” message. Hers is an image thing, believing the current slogan is a turn-off, if not politically incorrect.
In a state where taxes are an ever pressing problem and at a time when the governor is looking for across the board budget cuts, one might ask why the state doesn’t take a clue from other states which offer a variety of plates and raise revenue in the process. Included might be a series of plates touting such state attributes as the University of New Hampshire, the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, the first in the nation primary, and even a politically conservative plate with John Stark’s quote.
As with vanity plates, these state plates could be priced so as to both cover costs of production and distribution … and also generate a profit. Those designs without supporting customer base could simply be dropped.
Today, of the 1.3 million vehicles New Hampshire registers annually, the owners of some 84,000 opt for vanity plates … generating roughly $1,300,000, most of which supports driver education programs. With a broader selection of plate designs, each available with sequential numbers or as vanity plates, incremental revenues are a real possibility … with little downside risk.
There is an inescapable hypocrisy on the parts most of those who want to force “Live Free or Die” on the public. If they truly believe in the message they so piously espouse, they ought to let New Hampshire’s citizens enjoy the freedom to have a plate with or without the state’s motto.
At the same time, where are these sanctimonious defenders of freedom when legislation to permit citizen initiative petitions, protect individual rights to privacy, legalize games of chance, and ensure parental choice in education are on the table. Regretfully, too many of them have dozens of excuses as to why their constituents shouldn’t be granted such sovereignty.
All Americans are entitled to live free … if only the politicians would let them do so!
